


If You Wanna Make It Through the Night

by jcyriding



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M, Night Terrors, everybody loves armin, implied Jean Kirstein/Armin Arlert - Freeform, implied Reiner Braun/Armin Arlert - Freeform, lots of gay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-21
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-05-22 08:10:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6071644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jcyriding/pseuds/jcyriding
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Armin suffers from frequent night terrors, and the 104th boys are done with being woken up at unholy hours by his ceaseless shrieking. But one night, Jean gets an idea...</p>
            </blockquote>





	If You Wanna Make It Through the Night

**Author's Note:**

> the title is from the p!atd song "the good, the bad, and the dirty" which is such an eremin song bc i hate myself and love torture 
> 
> not in a serious way 
> 
> but yes yes "the good, the bad, and the dirty" is an eremin song and people can fight me ((but please don't bc i'll cry))

It wasn’t uncommon for Armin to get night terrors. Sometimes all the things he’d seen piled up in his mind, and they spilled over into his subconscious. He’d never remember what had happened when he woke up in the morning. He’d never remember how he’d scream and sob his sweet heart out, and how if anyone tried to touch him… well, the blond wasn’t very strong, but a cornered animal always packs the most painful bite. He would remain inconsolable for hours then, and there were times that the Cadet Corps Commander would have to be called on to help calm him down (on first glance, one would think that Keith Shadis was not a particularly calming presence, but he had his ways once he was done headbutting the people who woke him up). 

As Armin sat up, shrieking and wailing, there were several tired groans from the boys sharing the barrack. The sound of matches being struck soon joined the sobs, and flickering orange light filled the room as Marco succeeded in lighting some candles. Armin yelped, pressing himself against the wall and squeezing his powder-blue eyes shut as he started to scream again, and the boys looked around anxiously as they tried to figure out what to do. 

Jean sighed deeply, shaking his head and stepping forward. “Armin-” he started, leaning against the bunk. He apparently got a little too close to the blond boy, as Armin’s eyes shot open, a look of terrified ferocity on his face as he grabbed the taller male’s hand and bit into it. Jean let out a loud howl, drawing his hand back and looking at Armin in shock before turning back to the other boys. “Shit, am I bleeding?” He turned to ask Bertolt, who looked surprised and a little amused at Jean’s pain. 

Reiner rolled his eyes. “Someone needs to talk to Shadis about this. I mean, the kid is troubled; he needs some time with a professional, or some R and R.” 

“Forget that,” Jean grumbled. “What Armin Arlert needs is a fucking rubber room. Look at him.” He pointed with his sharp chin as he cradled his bitten hand. Armin was rocking back and forth, crying and hiccuping gently, hugging his knees. “He’s nuts. He’s a good enough guy when he’s awake, but he’s too dangerous when he’s like this! He fucking bit me!” 

Marco sighed softly, shaking his head. “You’re not being very tolerant, Jean…” 

“God, Marco, fuck tolerance! I’ve just been bitten, for Christ’s sake!” Jean’s complaints made Marco roll his eyes and shake his head again, mumbling softly in his native tongue. 

“Get Shadis, someone, please!” Reiner groaned, his deep voice booming over the voices of the others. He bit his lip, slowly chewing on it, and as the smaller boy began to scream again, Reiner winced. “God, someone shut him up, or I’ll start screaming.” 

Jean snorted. But then his smirk faded, and his honey-brown eyes looked down at Armin, then back at Reiner. “Wait a sec… What if… we don’t need to get Shadis?” He hummed with the quirk of an eyebrow. 

“Whaddaya mean, we don’t need Shadis? I mean, sure, he might hit us with his steel-plated skull, but if it’ll help Armin…” 

“No, we don’t have to suffer that,” Jean said brightly. “All we have to do is…” He looked over at Eren Jaeger, the sleeping boy’s breaths calm and even compared to those of his best friend. Eren’s sleeping habits were something of an envy to the other 104th boys who had to endure Armin’s night terrors, because Eren Jaeger could sleep through anything, and there were quite a few failed pranks that Eren had slept through to prove that. 

Reiner’s brow furrowed before the realization settled into his brain, and then a smile washed over his face. “You think Jaeger will be able to calm him down?” He asked. 

“It’s worth a shot. I mean, they’re practically joined at the hip, and they have been since they were kids, I think,” Jean sighed. He ran a hand through his hair as he yawned. “I just want to be able to sleep. It’s been a while, y’know?” Reiner nodded, as well as some of the other boys. Some of them, Connie, Marco, and Bertolt in particular, had awful dark circles under their eyes from being kept up. 

Reiner took a deep breath and walked to the bunk where the green-eyed boy slept peacefully. In his sleep, Armin must’ve mistaken his actions as aggressive towards him, as he screamed again and made a swiping motion at the larger boy. “Get back!” He yelled, blue hues wild. 

The larger male was taken aback, but he took a moment to gather his courage again before he slowly stooped down to access Eren more easily. He shook the boy roughly. “Hey. Hey, Eren! We need you for a sec.” 

The dark-haired male pulled his blankets up to his head, burying himself in his bed, before his sleepy mind registered the sound of Armin’s screams and he sat straight up, ocean green eyes huge. “That’s Armin screaming,” he hissed quickly. “What the hell’s going on?” He leapt out of bed, looking at his friend, then whirling to look fiercely back at the other boys. “Who hurt him?” He demanded, rage and fear making his voice shake. 

“No one hurt him, you twat, he’s asleep!” Jean snapped. “He’s having a night terror, and none of us can get him to calm down.” 

At least no one had tried to kill him. That made Eren relax a little, but he was still pretty pissed about being woken up. “What makes you think I can?” The teen shot back. His fists were balled at his sides, and his best friend’s screams were grating his ears. “What am I supposed to do?” His eyes flicked around until they focused on Jean’s hand. The bite marks Armin left stood out as a flushed red color on Jean’s tannish-sallow skin. “Who bit you?” He wrinkled his forehead. 

“Armin did, and that’s why you need to calm him down!” Jean shouted. “God, you are so thick sometimes, Jaeger…” 

Eren blinked, then looked over at his sobbing, wild-eyed friend. Slowly, he started toward the bunk, approaching quietly so as not to risk his own safety or startle the poor boy. Before climbing onto Armin’s level, he looked at the others, who were staring in wide-eyed curiosity. “Go back to your knitting,” he growled. Armin looked up and squealed, automatically throwing out a hand to try and hit Eren, but Eren just accepted the hit and continued to climb up and sit down next to him. “Armin,” he said quietly. “You don’t have to be scared, it’s just me.” 

The blond boy let out a thin whimper, shrinking back. “Stop it, stop it!” He moaned, shivering a little. “Get back, you’re going to hurt me!” 

Eren gave a sad smile and nodded, scooting away until he was sitting cross-legged on the edge of the bed. “I won’t touch you if you don’t want me to,” he hummed, looking at Armin through dark, thick lashes. “But I want you to know that I’m here if you need me, and I’m always going to be there to protect you. That’s a promise.” 

Armin continued to shiver, his still-teary eyes looking at anything but Eren. He whined as he shook his head. “Everyone dies…” He whispered. “I don’t want my friends to die, to be eaten…” 

“I’ll try my best not to,” Eren replied calmly. “You can trust me, Armin.” 

Armin sniffled and slid down from against the wall, his blond head coming to rest on his pillow. There were a few minutes of Armin slipping back into sobs before calming back down again before his eyelids began to slip shut, and he blinked rapidly to try to stop them. “Eren?” He mumbled. Eren looked over, raising his eyebrows, and Armin hummed, “Come here.” 

The green-eyed male crawled over, plopping his body down next to Armin, facing him. “Yeah?” 

“Don’t go, okay? Just for tonight…” Armin whispered.

Eren nodded, giving a soft smile and wrapping his arms around the smaller boy. He pressed his lips to the boy’s forehead in a gentle kiss. “Goodnight,” he murmured against Armin’s skin. 

“G’night,” the blond yawned and nuzzled into Eren’s neck. 

A few seconds of silence passed before Jean piped up in a loud whisper. “Can you believe this gay-ass shit?” 

“Go to bed, Jean,” Marco sighed as he blew out the candles he’d lit a little while before.

**Author's Note:**

> okay i want to clarify some of my headcanons
> 
> 1) jean has a total pottymouth and the other boys ((connie especially)) kind of pick it up from him  
> 2) marco's parents spoke italian to him like their parents did to them so they don't forget their heritage and now he's fluent  
> 3) all the 104th guys adore armin ((either romantically or platonically or in a familial way)) and so they're all super protective of him
> 
> yeah c:
> 
> i also just really love fics about sleeping together. like not in a sexual way. i feel like it's almost more intimate to fall asleep together than to have sex. idk… i just love sleeping fics.


End file.
